The next time I’m a criminal
Next time I’m tried for a criminal act, I think I’d like to be tried as a big bank.
Then I can pay a smallish fine for my misdeeds – pocket change for me, a cost of doing business really – and be assured that none of my business partners will stop hanging out with me or stop doing business with me, and in fact all punishments will likely be waived.
In any case, I’d prefer not to be tried as a poor person, where I’d likely be charged money I don’t have for my free lawyer, for any time I spend in jail, and possibly extra for a full jury. And if I didn’t have the money I’d have to spend extra time in jail, until I came up with the money I don’t have.
And since all people are equal under the law, even corporations, it shouldn’t matter who I choose to be, so I choose to be a big bank.
mathbabe 
Brava! I was so incensed when I heard that story on WNYC that I immediately donated an extra $250 to help make sure that investigative journalism (what’s the corresponding word for radio reporting?) continues. The prison industry has become very powerful.
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Makes me think of this Onion video.
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Sure, as soon as you come up with $2.6 billion. 😉
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If you choose to be tried as the CEO of a big bank, it’s even better. Then you get to have your employer pay the fines.
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Abuses on the normal citizen just don’t stop and now we have this HHS proposal for biosurveillance, a 50 page proposal to allow access to your medical records and more if it is determined you have a “government defined health incident”. The problem here is lack specificity on the verbiage, in other words it is like open game to declare anything they want as an “incident”. It just doesn’t stop and I’ll do my best with my Congress person to hopefully make an effort to try and make sure this doesn’t see the light of day in it’s current state. Comments were closed as of yesterday and perhaps there were enough to shut it down but as we all know stuff like this recirculates in some fashion.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/05/hhs-biosurveillance-plan-would-allow.html
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As linked before on this blog, Judge Rakoff’s comments on this topic are the wisest I’ve seen:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/financial-crisis-why-no-executive-prosecutions/
The whole essay is worth studying, but the part that I think particularly applies is the last 9 paragraphs.
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Brilliant! 🙂
There’s a New Yorker cartoon here, you know. 😉
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